


No City For Old Men

by tielan



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Missing Scenes, intersections, meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2442158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The intersection of Havelock Vetinari's life with a little bald wrinkly smiling man, who tends to treat him incautiously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No City For Old Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karanguni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/gifts).



> I feel like this story needs footnotes. The lack is bothering me, even though they're not such a Pterryism in the later books. Still. This story is not as clever as I wanted it to be, and I'm so sorry, karanguni! I hope you enjoy it all the same.

The first time Havelock encounters the old man, he’s just fourteen.

New to the city and the Guild from his family’s estates out in the country, he’s out for an afternoon stroll.

He’s studied the city on paper. But while one can learn the theory of knives and flesh, eventually application of the first to the second is required.

So Havelock is learning that everyone is going somewhere in Ankh-Morpork, that the streets are far busier and more crowded than the local town on the edge of the Vetinari estates, and that there are women walking the streets of Ankh-Morpork whom his mother would say ‘are no better than they should be’ and that some of them aren’t much older than he is.

He has also learned that the Shades presently extends two streets past the area the old maps say it does, that his decision to wear solid but unimaginative clothing was an excellent one for passing unnoticed, but also that it’s not quite enough to avoid being targeted by pickpockets.

The first thief is a boy perhaps several years Havelock’s junior, who is deterred by Havelock catching his wrist in a firm grip and looking him in the eye.

“Don’t try it again,” Havelock says, and lets him go.

The second is a an older man – looks like a tradesman, but bumps into Havelock as he turns a corner with a work bundle. A moment later, the ‘tradesman’ is surprised to fall over his own feet, and more than a little nervous when the young man helps him up. As he hurriedly pats himself down, his hand squashes the empty pocket where the purse was stashed.

Havelock’s smile is polite. “You have everything that belongs to you, sir.”

The thief is smart enough to realise it’s not a question. And smart enough to infer that if he doesn’t get away from the young man with the pleasant smile, certain parts of his body may still belong to him, but they will not necessarily be _attached_ to the rest of him.

He hurries on.

Havelock strolls on, quietly observing the people around him without actually seeming to observe them. It’s a trick he learned back in his family’s estate – one which earned him a reputation among the family of being cautious.

He doesn’t think of himself as cautious. Just...measured.

It’s a nice afternoon – as nice as the city gets. People out and about most of them quite intent about their business, very few taking note of anyone or anything else but their own goals.

This is how it is in the city, Havelock supposes. As compared to the family estates where all the servants know everything about the family, or the village where everyone knows and takes an interest in everything about everyone else.

A whole world of individuals, meandering through life, with little idea of what they want.

Unlike Havelock.

He hears the scrape of slate on slate, but it has no meaning for him in the city – not until the old street sweeper turns at someone’s cry of warning and knocks him over with the broom in a very unaccidental way. He sees the sweeper’s face – wizened and wrinkled and smiling – and then the sky and the falling slate like a swift-growing cloud in the scummy grey city sky.

It smashes to the ground a mere yard from Havelock’s feet.

In the ensuing ‘assistance’, Havelock’s purse is stolen, but that’s of little moment to him, although of great amusement to his classmates at dinner that night.

* * *

Havelock doesn’t recall the temple monks until days later, while standing at the window of Aunt Roberta’s townhouse, listening to the conversations behind him, even as he watches the streets below and thinks over the events of the previous few days.

No blame attaches to him – so Aunt Roberta says. They realised Snapcase’s orders too late, Keel couldn’t be reached in time...

And yet.

It is not guilt. Not blame. Not exactly.

Havelock finds himself intrigued by John Keel – by this man who, in a matter of days, earned the loyalty of the City Watch to the point where they fought to the death alongside him, and helped change the course of the city’s history.

“Thoughts, Havelock?” His aunt comes up beside him, looking out across the street where a lilac tree blooms in the garden of the Selachii family. “You’ve been quiet, even for you.”

“Merely reflecting, madam.”

“John Keel again.”

“Yes.”

“Out of nowhere and nothing, taking effective command of the City Watch, spurring the civilians on in life, and his men in death...”

And Keel’s death is the question, isn’t it? Havelock’s eyes narrow slightly.

“Havelock?”

“The body – Keel’s body.”

“What about it?”

“It looked...not right. Dead, of course. But there are different kinds of dead, and...we learn these things in the Guild. He looked...dead a while. Longer than a few hours. Rigor mortis, the colour of the skin, the way the blood settles in the body.” He shrugs.

“But it was Keel.”

“Keel’s men seemed to think so.”

“And you?”

“I don’t see how it couldn’t be.” Except that they never found Captain Carcer’s body, and there was that moment when time seemed to stutter, like a missed beat in the steady sound of drums...

Havelock pauses as he stares across the street, where the Selachii’s gardener is gently sweeping up the fallen blossoms of the lilac tree.

There were monks, Havelock recalls, their saffron robes swirling bright yellow about them as they moved through the edges of the battle. And the wizened little leader with the wrinkled smile...

“Havelock? Should we be looking for John Keel?”

He meets his aunt’s gaze, and shakes his head. “Keel is dead, madam.”

“Physically or metaphysically?”

For some reason the song rises in his head, like the little angels.

* * *

The gardens of the Palace are particularly nice today, bright and busy in the warm spring, and against the protests of his advisors and secretaries, he decides he’ll work from the gardens this afternoon.

“You’re not worried about the Assassins’ Guild, my lord?”

“They have rules regarding inhumation, Mangle. Iron-clad, unassailable rules that must be followed to the letter. Anyone could sight along a crossbow and hope to hit a target; the Assassin’s Guild specialises in the personal touch.”

Mangle is not new to the job – he’s one of the few who survived serving under Snapcase. Which is why his answer is perfectly pitched – understanding, undoubting, a little obsequieous: “Of course, my lord.”

Havelock doesn’t sigh as he sits down on the chair and desk which the footmen bring out with precise care. They will learn that his displeasure will not lead to their death – dead people cannot learn, after all – but that will take time.

He has time. At least, he plans to have time, and he will prepare for the inevitable inhumation attempts that are sure to come with the changes he is about to instigate upon an unsuspecting city.

But for now, the ordinary work is his goal, and he makes his way through the pile left after the death of Snapcase, requests the presence of various Guild leaders within the city, and writes various letters to various civic leaders. The civic leaders in particular will be somewhat bemused by what he has to suggest to them, but they will see the advantages in his proposal.

The work is steadily, methodically dealt with through the early morning. And just before lunchtime, he seals the last letter and adds it to the pile which Mangle takes away.

“I’ll take lunch in the garden, Mangle. Thank you.”

“As my lord wishes.”

Havelock isn’t sure what makes him decide to take the path beside the hoho. He isn’t certain as to what leads him to turn off towards the walled-in gardens on the Hubwards shade of the hill. He doesn’t know why he steps through the circular gate and into the garden with it’s long, winding path through the colourful maples and past the willow-tipped lake.

He certainly doesn’t notice the old man working on the baby trees in the pagoda until he’s almost on top of him.

“Watch the moss, eh?” Solid brown hands brush leaves and wield a pair of shears against the tiny tree. “Took forever to get it to take. I think it wants a bit more winter. Don’t suppose you can do anything much about that, my lord?”

“I fear the seasons are not my department,” Havelock notes. “But perhaps a prayer to the gods?”

“Hah,” is the response as the gardener prunes twigs from the tree with precise care. “I don’t think so.”

The bluntness amuses Havelock, and the lack of obsequiousness is refreshing. He studies the gardener: bald as an egg, brown as a nut, and wearing comfortable simple clothing, suitable for garden work. But there’s something vaguely familiar about him.

Shears snip leaves with careful delicacy, and Havelock watches as the gardener shapes the tiny tree – not just a sapling, but a tree in miniature – into a careful shape. A master at work, one who pays attention to detail and has patience for twig, branch, trunk, and root.

“Your Lordship likes the trees?”

It takes him a moment to respond – when did the old gardener start studying him? And why didn’t Havelock notice?

“They’re impressive. Not to my taste, perhaps, but they look good. You do these?” His hand encompasses the entirety of the Auriental Gardens.

“Not really. Just the bonsai.”

“Delicate work.”

“After looking at the big picture, sometimes it’s nice to focus on the small details.”

“The small details make up the big picture,” Havelock observes, thinking of the city and not a garden “If one sees only the big picture, then the little details are expendable. And yet, without all the little details, the big picture wouldn’t exist.”

“Surely you can only go so small, though. For instance, the city can’t be dependent on one man.”

Havelock smiles – more to himself than at the gardener. “I would say that depends on the man.”

“Hah. And yet it is said that the demons are in the detail.”

“You cut the leaves and twigs on that,” he gestures at the _bonsai_ tree. “But you’re looking at the whole tree, not just the twig or branch. You balance it, shape it, and when it grows, it grows better.”

The gardener looks from the little tree to him and back to the little tree. “The Abbot’s going to be insufferable after this,” he mutters, more to himself than to Havelock. “As though him growing up wasn’t bad enough. Well,” he says in a more normal voice, “looks like you have a good handle on things, my lord.”

“On this garden, at least. We’ll see about the rest.”

“Is it not said, ‘ _Work with today, not with tomorrow_ ’?”

“Is it?” This time, Havelock smiles at the gardener. “But in order to know what’s important today, one must still take a quick look into tomorrow.”

“Ha, if I had that ability...well, I wouldn’t be gardening here.” The old man climbs to hs feet, brushes himself down and frowns at the trousers. “Anyway, I’ll take my shovel and go, my lord. Things to look at, branches to prune, and so on.”

“Cities to run, lunch to eat, people to manage.” Havelock regards the elegantly appointed space of the Auriental Garden. “Thank you for the work you’ve put in on this.”

The gardener shrugs as he shoulders the shovel. “All in the job.”

He walks off, sandals slapping against the paved path in a steady rhythm like the beat of a drum...

Havelock’s feet are moving even before he realises where he’s seen that face before – wizened, brown, and smiling.

When he reaches the gate in the wall, the lawn beyond is empty.

 


End file.
